Bad Boys For Life Review: 7 Ups & 3 Downs

4. It's Surprisingly Moving

The most surprising thing about this entire movie is that, somehow, it's a weirdly affecting and even downright moving film.

Smartly exploiting the audience's fondness for these characters and keenly exploring how they've changed as they've grown into middle age, the film strips down their cartoonish veneers and brings them into something approaching a believable dimension.

With Marcus becoming a grandfather in the opening moments of the movie and Mike having his own weighty dramatic load to carry later in the film, what was largely a cheeky bromance in the first two films evolves to become something with unexpected, sneaky emotional resonance.

For a franchise largely lauded for its shamelessly brainless thrills, that's quite a pivot, and one the filmmakers delicately massage into all the brutal shootouts and silly banter.